About Us

RAWtools, Inc. gets its scriptural motivation from Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3. We want to be comprehensive in our efforts to move our communities away from gun violence and violence as a whole. Its not enough to just make a lot of tools from guns. We need to help teach each other new ways to solve our problems through relationship, dialogue, and alternative means of justice, i.e. Restorative Justice practices and victim-offender dialogue.

Our nation has been through a variety of horrific events surrounding gun violence and it has brought the conversation to the forefront of our current events and “water cooler” conversations. It has largely become a binary conversation of either more guns or more laws. RAWtools wants to open a new option, a third way. What if we made a commitment to solve our problems without guns and violence? You can find statistics to support more laws to keep guns off the streets. You can find statistics to support adding more guns to deter bad things from happening. In either case, people are afraid of guns.

By using weapons to make garden tools and other hand tools, we are creating a symbol for change and we’re asking you to participate. We are asking our communities to dare to use our imaginations to change our impulse. Beating swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, and guns into garden tools creates a dynamic shift in our investment in time and resources. If we are no longer training for war, what else would we be doing? It doesn’t mean we are all to become gardeners, but it does mean we can invest in providing life sustaining resources for our communities.

Our Mission

Disarm Hearts. Forge Peace.

Our Vision

To repurpose weapons into hand tools to be used in the creation of something new, preventing the weapon’s use for violence and creating a cycle of peace. RAWtools, Inc. partners with communities in an effort to repurpose weapons for productive lifelong purpose. The materials from the weapon will be forged into media suitable for fabrication into new tools. Each weapon will be connected to its new purpose, creating a narrative that will travel with the new tool. This narrative will take on a tangible form in the packaging of the tool, traveling to its new destination and purpose. An online interactive story will be formed for each tool where the new owner of the tool will be able to “show and tell” how the tool is being used, thus, preventing a cycle of violence and creating a cycle of peace. With this imagery we will look to provide resources and opportunities to “learn of war no more, ” as Micah and Isaiah, and you and I, have hoped for.